We know a lot about the history of our town, including our service to the nation in various wars, participation in the Industrial Revolution through the shoe industry, how the Boston Marathon came to be sited in Hopkinton, championship sports teams and athletes, along with various important and colorful people from the past. What these accounts lack is an acknowledgement of our town’s prominent participation in several important nineteenth-century reform movements, including antislavery.

Hopkinton residents took an early and keen interest in immediate abolition. First advocated by editor of The Liberator and Newburyport native William Lloyd Garrison in early 1830, immediatism operated with the belief that the United States had an urgent moral obligation to end the barbaric system of slavery without hesitation.  

Nearly every town in Massachusetts had a local antislavery organization, including Hopkinton. Noteworthy families involved in abolition included: Fitch, Bowker, Phipps, Davenport, Wales and Claflin. Membership was open to anyone with a desire to see slavery eradicated, and Hopkinton women participated as well. The group met regularly at the Hayden Rowe Hall, where they pledged and raised money to support the state organization, debated the important issues surrounding the best methods for convincing the government to take immediate action, and simultaneously recruited new members to the cause. Amos Albee served as the secretary, and Hopkinton sent delegates to the Southern Middlesex County conventions as well as state meetings.

Because of the close connection to our neighbors to the south in Milford, members from both communities attended the other’s events. In his diary from this era, shoemaker Samuel Dexter Wales makes frequent mention of visiting the North Purchase Street meetinghouse to hear speakers sent by the state organization to encourage loyalty to the cause and raise money for it as well. Hopkinton similarly welcomed Milford residents such as the prominent pastor, author and founder of Hopedale, Adin Ballou to Hayden Rowe.

I first learned of the Hayden Rowe Hall when putting together a program on women’s history in Hopkinton a few years ago, and I was excited to find that Lucy Stone had lectured there.

Stone, born in West Brookfield, and the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree, was a remarkable speaker highly regarded by audiences for her oratorical skills, humor, and poise. She would especially need those last two as a woman taking to the public platform at a time when women were prohibited by custom and religious beliefs from engaging in this kind of behavior. Not only was her message of immediatism radical, but her very presence addressing a public audience composed of both men and women was an affront to all those who believed women had no business meddling in affairs of the world. In other words, almost everybody.

In addition to Stone, William Lloyd Garrison, Abby Kelley, Aidan Ballou, Charles Remond and other “stars” of the antislavery lecture circuit spoke at Hayden Rowe Hall. The most prominent among the visitors was none other than Frederick Douglass in April, 1842.  A newly self-emancipated slave who would rise to international fame, 24-year-old Douglass arrived in Hopkinton with a small group of lecturers, all employed by the Massachusetts Antislavery Society.

In 1838, young Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey made a second attempt at self-emancipation from slavery in Maryland. With financial help from his fiancée, Anna Murray, he successfully made it to New York city and the home of David Ruggles, an abolitionist active in the Underground Railroad. Anna joined him a few days later and they were married in Ruggles’ parlor.  Their host advised them to travel on to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Frederick was likely to find work on the docks and a thriving free Black community.

Upon arrival in New Bedford, Frederick decided to assume a new surname to protect his identity, and the young couple began their married lives as Frederick and Anna Douglass. They found a welcoming presence among New Bedford people, and they settled in and started their family.  Douglass rose to local prominence as a lay preacher while working on the docks.  He was a remarkable young man for several reasons, not the least of which was his literacy and rhetorical skill. While enslaved, he had been taught the rudiments of reading and he pursued knowledge with an intensity that would shine throughout the remainder of his incredible life.

As a teen, Douglass taught other enslaved people to read and set about studying The Colombian Orator, the premier rhetoric text for the 19th century. By the time he reached New Bedford at age 20, he had the knowledge of what it took to be a successful public speaker and he embraced every opportunity to hone his skills.

Possessing a keen intellect, a commanding presence and a powerful voice, Douglass earned a reputation as a gifted orator in his newly adopted hometown. For the first few years his abilities were confined to the Black community, but in August of 1841 that changed.  White abolitionists in attendance at a meeting of the Bristol County Antislavery Society in New Bedford had heard about his prowess as a speaker and the story of his self-emancipation from slavery. Several delegates visited a church where they heard Douglass for the first time, and afterward one of the delegates, William Coffin, invited Douglass and Anna to join a group traveling on to Nantucket to another antislavery convention. Among those present were William Lloyd Garrison and John A. Collins, president of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society.

The Douglass’ accepted the invitation and on August 10, 1841, Douglass rose from the audience at the Nantucket Atheneum and offered his thoughts on a resolution. The next day, he was called upon to address the convention. It was his first time speaking before a racially mixed audience and the occasion launched a public career that lasted nearly 6 decades. “I shall never forget his first speech at the convention,” recalled Garrison in 1845, “the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind – the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise – the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks.”

At the conclusion of the Nantucket convention, Collins offered Douglass a job as a paid lecturer for the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, where Frederick quickly emerged as a major star on the circuit. Douglass completed his first 18 months on the job having spoken in nearly 50 towns throughout Massachusetts, including once in Hopkinton on April 29, 1842. The Historical Society has yet to locate an account of the meeting in any available records, but there are several responses to Douglass’ lectures during this time in Massachusetts, including this from an observer at a Cape Cod convention: “How charming, how powerful is truth uttered in love and clothed in sympathy! His remarks were exceedingly pertinent, and he made a visible impression on the countenances of his audience!” Samuel Walcutt of Barnstable wrote of Douglass in 1843 “In point of moral worth, or intellectual ability, or native energy of character, I have never met his equal.”

Though very often denied the use of halls, churches and municipal buildings in other communities, antislavery reformers were able to congregate in a variety of spaces in Hopkinton. In addition to the Hayden Rowe Hall, meetings were held, and speeches were delivered in the Town Hall, the First Congregational Church’s parish house, and occasionally on the Town Common.

The people of Hopkinton continued their efforts for the cause for the next several decades, holding meetings and fundraisers, and joining in the multitudes of petitions sent to both the state and federal government. One such petition, circulating through Massachusetts in early 1843, called for prohibiting state officials from aiding slave catchers who came North to reclaim their master’s “property”. Nearly 65,000 people from across the state signed the petition, including 322 from our town. The law passed.

Eli Belknap and 169 others from the town petitioned against the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, and the list of signatories includes numerous shoe manufacturers such as Erastus Thompson and a dozen or so women including Martha and Elizabeth Frail.

There are two more documented interactions between the Hopkinton abolitionists and Frederick Douglass. In June 1855, bootmaker Samuel Dexter Wales wrote in his diary that he and his niece Sophia had gone to hear Douglass speak and found him to be “tedious”, contrary to what most abolitionists expressed.  Several years later, in 1859, Douglass wrote a letter of thanks from his home in Rochester to Mrs. Freeland and the “Ladies of Hopkinton” for their generous donation of clothing and cash sent to help with the escaped enslaved people making their way into Canada. The letter is owned by the descendants of Rev. John A. Fitch, but the Historical Society has a copy.

As for Hayden Rowe Hall, we have concluded that the meetings were held in what was the first Methodist Church built in Hopkinton, which stood at 196 Hayden Rowe from 1816 until the late 20th century when it was torn down. Lee Claflin built a larger Methodist church in the center of town, and the 1816 building served as both a schoolhouse and later a fire station.

This only scratches the surface of Hopkinton’s participation in abolition and other social reform movements like temperance and suffrage. There is much to be uncovered and documented in the Historical Society’s archives and other records throughout town. In the meantime, we hope you will join us to participate in the Massachusetts Humanities’ ongoing project Reading Frederick Douglass Together, which will take place in the early summer months. Stay tuned!

Anne Mattina is the Vice President of the Hopkinton Historical Society. The Historical Society is always welcoming new members, and they encourage visitors to stop by to browse their incredible collection of artifacts.